E
VOL. 50 ISSUE 16 APRIL 23, 2013
HECTOR ARANA JR.
WINS UNIQUE NHRA
FOUR-WIDE EVENT
Wide race might not be familiar,
the winner was fairly well known
as Lucas Oil Buell's Hector Arana
Jr., a former NHRA rookie of the
year, won his second-consecutive race to open the season.
Arana won the final round with
a 6.89 elapsed time hanging on
to defeat Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson's Eddie Krawiec,
who ran a 6.92. Sovereign/Star
Buell's Scotty Pollacheck finished third and Bad Boy Buggies
Suzuki's Jimmy Underdahl was
fourth.
"This is my first time at the fourwide and I love it," Arana Jr. said.
"I have a feeling it's going to be
one of those years. Everything
so far has fallen into place for
me. The bike's running very consistent. This Lucas Oil bike is bad
to the bone. We've got this thing
dialed in and we don't have to do
too much as far as the tune-up
goes."
Arana's first matchup of the
day was perhaps his toughest
as he had to race his younger
brother and teammate, Adam,
and both of the Screamin' Eagle
Harley-Davidsons of Krawiec and
Andrew Hines. Arana got the win
with a 6.86, while Krawiec also
advanced with a 6.87.
Arana was, once again,
matched against Krawiec in
round two with Viper Motorcycle
The Four-Wide Final gets underway
at the zMax Dragway with Scotty
Pollacheck (near lane), Hector Arana
Jr. (second from bottom), Eddie
Krawiec (second from top) and
Jim Underdahl (top) dropping the
hammer.
P67
Briefly...
When former Matt Smith Racing
rider Michael Ray joined the Sovereign/Star Buell team this winter
he considered it to be a positive
career move and even though he's
lost in the first round at the first two
events in Gainesville and Charlotte,
Ray still believes he's on the right
track. Ray ran a respectable 6.88
in the opening round, but did not
advance as his former teammate
Smith and Shawn Gann both outran him. "We're missing something
right now and it's frustrating," Ray
said. "My problem is that I'm a lot
like [NBA star] Kobe Bryant; I'm
a horrible loser. I just hate to get
beat. To be completely honest I
could have done a better job riding. I need to get comfortable on
this bike again. In the end, I'm sure
that we'll make the top 10 and be
in the Countdown. As long as you
do that, you've got a chance to win
a championship and that's all I can
ask for."
In one of the day's most surprising
developments, Katie Sullivan not
only advanced past the first round
for just the second time in her career, but actually won her heat
against John Hall, Hector Arana Sr.
and Steve Johnson, with a careerbest 6.870. Sullivan can trace her
dramatic improvement to her new
crew chief, Gary Stoffer, who took
over the reins while his wife, Karen,
remains sidelined due to a lack of
sponsorship. "I was sitting at home
pretty much doing nothing and Katie's dad, Charlie, called me and
asked if I'd help out," Stoffer said.
"This is what I love to do so I was
happy to help out. I've worked with
Katie in the past and I know the potential she has. They have decent
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